I know Dave and I have used z/XDC continuously since the 1980s. My concern is more applicable to the general case when an M&A company acquires a mainframe software company; these things usually happen:
1) Staff is reduced 2) Product(s) are renamed 3) Prices are raised and that is invariably followed by a reduction in the quality of customer support, and usually a halt to future enhancement of the product(s). Cases in point: Bain Capital's acquisition of BMC and then Compuware; Precisely's acquisition of Syncsort; Broadcom's acquisition of CA (CA's acquisition habits before CA itself was acquired is a similar story). Maybe this won't happen in this case with Izzy/Big Band; time will tell. When those at the top of a company did not start as software developers, IMO the future of high quality support for the customers of that enterprise is dim. Mike Shaw MVS/QuickRef Support Group Chicago-Soft, Ltd. On Fri, Jan 31, 2025, 9:40 AM Phil Smith III <[email protected]> wrote: > Well, this thread turned contentious...not my intent! My ramblings on the > topic follow; I expect to be beaten up for it, but hope we can have a > meaningful discussion (speculation) instead. > > Yes, it's hard to see how a new mainframe company can do much more than > eke out an existence and then sell to one of the big dogs. OTOH ColeSoft > has been a respected player for quite a while, and this is Izzy's first and > thus (so far) only product, so there's no *particular* reason to expect big > changes. And there are a few other small companies who soldier on against > all odds. > > My concern would be greater with the more common acquisition by a big > player, who "optimizes" things (cuts staff beyond the bone) and then > wonders why $x+$y (where x = big player revenue and y = acquired company's > revenue) adds up to something less than $(x+y). Of course they get away > with it with their Board and stockholders, because the net is still more > than $x, so look, we "successfully managed the acquisition and grew"! Never > mind what you did to the employees, customers, and product, and how much > opportunity you squandered in the process. A smaller acquirer is > (presumably) more focused, plus they can't fall back on "We can get rid of > all these people because we have other people, and software engineers can > be bought by the pound anyway". > > So I'm cautiously optimistic. I echo Doug's concern that none of the named > people have any known track record in the mainframe world. That doesn't > have to be significant--being noisy/visible doesn't prove anything about > competence. I was not impressed that the site had "z/Series" and > "i/Series", 20 *YEARS* after the zSeries and iSeries names were killed, but > they promptly and cheerfully fixed that when I pointed it out. > > My other concern is that BigBand's tagline is "We harmonize capital, > culture and teams to buy and grow SaaS companies", plus they say "We buy > B2B SaaS businesses that are growing and profitable, with ARR in the range > of $1M to $10M". Aside from the missing serial comma (JOKE, let's not start > THAT flamewar!), that SaaS mission seems orthogonal to ColeSoft, so there's > some WTF there. > > They seem to have acquired Workzone and Inphonite previously, so it's not > like they went totally off-piste in their first outing. But $1M to $10M are > basically toy companies these days, so they're either destined to be small > fish (like ColeSoft, who has awesome products but a fairly small and > shrinking market of hardcore z/OS developers, mostly vendors--and now we're > back to the "Big Three" problem again) or else BigBand thinks they have the > magic formula to buy into the next Instagram when it's tiny. That's...pure > gambling, sorry, and leaves me unconvinced by BigBand's model. Which still > doesn't have to relate to ColeSoft/Izzy, since there IS apparently a > sustainable revenue stream there. I'd also note that Workzone and Inphonite > each have TWO job openings posted, so they aren't exactly showing a lot of > investment/growth. (Yes, it's possible that they just hired a shedload of > folks, but what are the odds?) > > I thus choose to see this acquisition as (mostly) good news. ColeSoft's > customers are committed, because the products are so solid and unique, and > so whatever happens, there will be a revenue stream that someone will want. > Worst case, BigBand/Izzy implode and one of the Big Three picks up the > ashes. That isn't ideal--best case would have been Dave Cole finding the > Fountain of Youth and continuing forever--but it's better than Dave > retiring and having the products die of pure neglect. > > Time will tell, eh? > > ...phsiii > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
